When we read, we discover new ideas and become wiser, shaping our perception of how we see ourselves and how we see the rest of the world. It is how we learn about that which we know that we don’t know, and that which we don’t know that we don’t know.
Whether or not you enjoy reading, if you are reading this post you are already aware of such benefits but keep wondering about how you can accomplish reading more books. In this fast-changing day and age merely investing in a college degree no longer cuts it. Instead we must become life-long learners. And when we compare the cost of a single college credit or college course to the cost of one book, it is stupid not to invest our time and money into reading more books. However, in many countries the average person reads only 5 books each year, nevertheless, this figure can be highly inflated due to the large number of books read by a small number of people.
The Indian social entrepreneur and Skoll Award recipient, Harish Hande, who I recently had the honor to meet, is right when he says that as the financial gap between the rich and the poor keeps widening, we must stop confusing between financial poverty and intellectual poverty. Thus, if we want to diminish the financial and intellectual gaps in the world, and to develop ourselves and others into leaders, then, as citizens of this world and our countries, it is our responsibility to read more and to transform others into habitual readers. It is true that “Not all Readers are Leaders, but ALL Leaders are Readers”.
For years, one of my New Year’s Resolutions had been to read more books, yet I would always fall behind and find myself trying to make up for my reading goals each summer. However, if I wanted to read more books, I had to become a year-long habitual reader. Today, cultivating this habit has taken planning, iterating through habits and routines, and building momentum through small wins. In the rest of this blog post, I will share with you what I have learned along this journey as well as a few other strategies that you can start implementing today, which will change your relationship with books forever.
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1. Define Your Purpose for Reading
Think back to any book that you have ever read. You chose that book over all other books, and you also chose to invest several hours into reading that book; all of this with the hope or expectation that you would receive one or more things back from it, such as entertainment and/or new experiences or knowledge about something, someone, or someplace. While it is impossible for us to remember everything that we read, or even the name of every book that we have read, the books that we read will make us, as the writer Ralph Waldo Emerson once said:
“I cannot remember the books I’ve read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
When we clearly define our purpose in regards to why we read, and why we read what we read, this motivates us to keep reading. It helps us to choose and to read the right books for us as well as to put down the wrong ones. Our reading needs and expectations are reflected in our general and specific reading purposes. General purposes could include becoming inspired, becoming informed, and/or being entertained. Or they could be as simple as to become a better reader or writer in our native or a non-native language. Specific purposes may include self-improvement or learning more about starting a business, investing, parenting, gardening, the universe, a person’s life, another culture, a historical event, etc. Similarly, others may be interested in non-fiction or fiction stories about romance, adventure, space, war, politics, etc.
If you are not sure whether a book will match your objectives, you can always try skimming it, reading a sample, a summary or a few reviews.
2. Set Yourself a Goal and Write-it Down
Books come in many different font sizes and page numbers, and consequently take different amounts of time to read. The length of a book is not a good indicator of its quality, but what is a reality is that we have become used to wanting instant gratification and hence might go for books on the shorter side. This trend is reflected by the downward trend in the average number of pages of the best-selling book published in recent years. Unlike reading an article, reading a book requires a commitment, but the reward is much greater in terms of enrichment, depth into a subject, and developing a conversation and a connection with the author and yourself.
Forget about how long each book is; inevitably some will be shorter, and some will be longer. Zig Ziglar once said, “If you aim at nothing you will hit it every time”. Thus, as with anything else that you set yourself to accomplish in life, set a SMART goal detailing how many books you will read, and even exactly which books. Break your goal down into parts, and absolutely write it down.
3. Create and Prioritize Your Reading List
One of the things that can get in our way the most when it comes to reading is not knowing what we are going to read next. Having another book that you are anxious to read waiting for you as soon as you finish the one you are on can double your motivation to get to the end. It also makes for a quick transition eliminating the search and indecisiveness about what to read next. This is why having a reading list that is constantly evolving is critical. Nevertheless, what is even more important is what books you have on reading list and how you prioritize them.
Whether or not you have a list already, handwritten or digital, building, maintaining, and prioritizing your list involves careful planning. You may have also realized by now that at your current reading pace you will continue adding books to your list at a much faster rate than you will be able to read them. But by the time you get to some of them you will wish that you had already learned some of the lessons in them, while others may have become outmoded or outdated.
There are many resources and channels that you can use to build your reading list. Not only is there a plethora of book reviews and book summaries online, but you probably also have access to a vast network of people to whom (friends, family, colleagues, etc.) you can ask for book recommendations. Why not consider joining one of the many online communities of readers, such as Goodreads? This is the online community that I personally use to track every book that I have read, that I am currently reading, and that I want to read. On it, not only can I see what all of my friends and anyone else I may admire have on their read, reading, or to read lists, but I also have immediate access to thousands of book ratings and book reviews.
Blinkist is another great resource that I love which constantly helps me to discover new books and to get great ~15-minute book summaries. These often help me to determine whether I should read the whole book, or whether I am just as well-off by simply reading the main insights. Other times, I’ll read the Blinks from a book I have already read to refresh up on it.
Lastly, if you regularly attend conferences or speaker events, you may have noticed that very often speakers do mention specific books that helped them or influenced them; otherwise, asking them for their book recommendations or the books that have influenced them the most usually makes a great audience Q&A question to ask.
If your goal is to read 12 books over the next twelve months, then it will be very useful to develop a separate list with the 12 books that you will read, and to rank them in the order that you will read them. Keep in mind that you are free to reorder, substitute, or add books to your list as your reading purpose and goals evolve over time.
4. Find Out How You Read Best
Are you a hard-copy, e-reader, or audiobook enthusiast? Perhaps you fall into two or all three of these categories, or you may be thinking, but wait should audiobooks be considered “reading a book”. Without getting into a debate about the latter, my point is that everyone learns differently, and what works for one person may not work for the other. If you have never tried e-books or audiobooks, I would highly encourage you to find out whether they work well for you and figure out which format(s) help(s) you maintain your relationship with books the best.
Each of them may have their pluses and minuses. While some people love to markup and take notes on the margins of their hard copy books, others love to highlight sentences and look up unfamiliar words on their e-reader. And others still love the convenience of audiobooks, just like when their parents read to them stories out loud as children.
But at the end of the day they are not mutually exclusive. In fact, one could be reading multiple books at the same time either in the same or in different formats. From my experience, some books may make a much better read as an audiobook, such as two of my favorites “Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike” and “Talk Like TED: The 9 Public-Speaking Secrets of the World’s Top Minds”. On the other hand, other books filled with more visual material and more technical jargon are easier to follow and digest in a paper or e-book format. Unfortunately, it is not always that easy to infer before starting a book in which format it will make a better read.
5. Always ‘Carry’ a Book with You That Excites You
Most people will just tell you that you should take a book everywhere with you if you want to read more, but I have found that this alone won’t help you read more. What you need is to also have a book that you want to read very badly at all times. So, if you are a few hours into a book, and you are not feeling it, you should probably put it down and pick a different one. Personally, I may put down a book for either of the following reasons: the book is not very good in the first place, I am not reading the book in the right format, or although the book is good and the format too, it may not be the right moment or time in my life for me to read it, hence I set it aside to read at a later time.
By carrying a book that excites you at all times, you will be able to easily transform into reading places and reading moments all those other minutes or hours that you are currently spending on your phone scrolling through Instagram photos, watching Netflix, etc. Some of these places may include your bed, the toilet, or the bus, train or plane. Although we can carry around one book in our hand or in our backpack, it is much easier to carry around tens or hundreds of books at once in our e-reader, tablet, or mobile phone.
As an audiobook person, I regularly get asked by my friends, when exactly do I find the time to listen to my audiobooks. While some of these moments overlap with the moments that I could find myself reading from a hard-copy book or from my Kindle Paperwhite, I have also experimented with listening to audiobooks under many other situations. Most of these would be deemed difficult or impossible for normal reading. These include simple activities like walking, standing (waiting), driving, riding a bicycle, cooking, working out, folding laundry, eating alone, among others; the possibilities include any mindless activity in which I can easily multitask without impacting the activity I am performing and without foregoing any retention. Thus, it just as important to carry a pair of headphones at all times, something which I only started doing since I bought a pair of AirPods last year.
6. Find a Comfortable Reading Pace Without Sacrificing Retention
Reading is not a race to the finish. It is not about merely trying to read as many books as possible for the sake of reading more books, but rather about learning and/or enjoying ourselves from what we are reading. That is why it is important to read or listen at a comfortable pace. Speed reading is a very useful skill, but one that takes time to practice and develop, especially without sacrificing retention. On the other hand, when I listen to audiobooks, I always try to find the right listening speed for me for each book which ranges between 1x and 1.5x. While I could try to listen to all of my books at a speed of 1.5x or faster just to get through more books, it is not always the wisest choice. This is especially true if you tend to perform other activities while you listen, or if you are still getting used to consuming books in this way.
7. Give Yourself Short Reading Breaks
The best books are the ones that are difficult to put down, that turn reading into an obsession, and that set us into a state of flow. But since we live in the age of distraction and short attention spans, I often find that when I take short reading breaks, I experience increased focus, engagement, and retention while reading. To me, taking a short reading break means switching things up a bit once in a while. Since my primary and preferred reading format is through audiobooks, once in a while I choose to listen to music or a podcast instead, such as when I am driving or taking public transportation. This will help me get back refreshed into my audiobook, which can be especially useful when listening to denser or longer books, 10+ hours, or before starting a new book.
8. Set a Monthly or Yearly Reading Budget
Books, especially great books can be expensive, but they represent a mere fraction of the cost of a college degree. Nevertheless, if you want to read more books you will have to adjust your mindset and see books from the perspective of being an investment in yourself. Just as you set aside a budget for other things in your life, setting a budget for books will ensure that you have the financial means to fulfill your goal, but also without overspending.
In fact, reading can be very inexpensive with the right planning. Rarely do we take advantage of our local or university libraries whether it is for physical books, electronic books, or even audiobooks. It took me five years of living in the same city to visit the Public Library, but when I did and got my membership to the Los Angeles Public Library, I discovered that my membership even provided me with free access to a mobile application containing thousands of e-books and audiobooks. Another excellent alternative is to borrow from or even exchange books with a friend.
Even planning your reading ahead of time can save you a lot of money, such as by buying all of your books on clearance during Prime Day or Black Friday, or buying e-books and audiobooks in bulk, such as by getting a monthly or annual audiobook subscription. Personally, I have been purchasing Audible's Platinum subscription on an annual basis, which includes 24 books per year and goes for $229.50 per year. This brings the cost of each book to $9.56, which is a bargain in my opinion. Having made this upfront investment motivates me even further to meet my reading goals, and it also makes it very easy to have my next book available from the press of a button on my phone.
You may find that there are other better or more economic options out there, however I haven’t bothered doing much research on this. If you use any other apps or resources, I would love to hear about them in the comments below.
9. Start or Join a Book Club
Although I have personally never joined a book club, I can speak to it from the perspective of my mother who recently did join one. Being part of a book club not only exposes us to new genres and styles that we may have not considered before, but also gives us the extra push to stay on top of reading and stick to a deadline for finishing a book.
10. Sustain It: Track, Reflect, and Iterate Building new habits and routines like reading before going to bed or getting used to listening to an audiobook while we drive take time. Reading is like any other skill, the more we do it the better we get at it, but we also gradually obtain tens of other side benefits such as expanded vocabulary, better writing skills, stress reduction and other health benefits.
After a few weeks or months finding yourself making progress towards your reading goals, you will want to make sure that you can sustain it. You may be familiar with Peter Drucker’s quote:
“You can’t manage what you can’t measure”
Thus, if you don’t regularly track your progress and reflect upon it, it will be difficult to steer yourself back on course. Identifying and maintaining what has worked well for you and iterating on what has not will help you become a resilient reader.
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I can guarantee you that if you apply most of the recommendations that I have just provided, you will be on your way to reading more books, perhaps even two or more per month. Please keep in mind the responsibility you have of developing the new generation of readers and leaders. Thank you for getting to the end of this post.
This blog post began as a speech that I wrote and delivered for Toastmasters one year and a half ago, which I had been meaning to expand upon and share as a blog post. Today this has become my first blog post ever. Stay tuned for more in the future.
If you found this post useful please share with someone else who might benefit from it. And if would like to learn more about some of the resources I shared in this post here is some more information about them:
Blinkist
Blinkist lets you get the key insights of 2,000+ bestselling non-fiction books across hundreds of topics. I like that you can read them or listen to them from your phone, your computer, or even send them to your Kindle device. Some of the expert-curated reading lists from people like Arianna Huffington are also a great plus. You can sign up for free here, which will help support me with sharing more amazing content.
Audible
Audible is by far my favorite audiobook application, which I have used to purchase and listen to over 100 audiobooks. The best thing about it is that you can give it a try and even get two audiobooks for free when you sign up for the first time. Its selection of books is probably the largest out there, although occasionally I will not find a book I really want, hence I end up getting the e-book version for my Kindle. My favorite features include the customizable listening speed (0.5x–3x), the sleep timer, and the ability to rewind 20 seconds at a time when you want to re-listen to something. For a more detailed review of Audible you can read my friend Alejandro’s review on LinkedIn.
Goodreads is my go to app for tracking all the books that I have read. It also helps me to discover new books I may want to read by seeing on my newsfeed what my friends on Goodreads are reading. I also love the fact that I can use it on my Kindle Paperwhite. I’d love to connect on Goodreads and get inspiration from the books you are reading.